Raiders and Soldiers
by dharmawrites
Summary: Cydar is a raider left for dead at the doorstep of Paladin Danse, and to her surprise, he doesn't kill her. Will she use this second chance at life to break away from her bloodied past? Or will she continue to be a murderer? OC x Paladin Danse


There were worse ways to live.

It certainly wasn't ideal. The constant death that stuck to her like a blanket was suffocating on the good days, and on the bad days, it was like somebody had ripped open her chest to expose her heart, her _core_ , to the whole world. But then again, she wasn't dead herself, so there was no use complaining. At least the radiation level hadn't warped her mind or rotted the flesh from her bones. At least the big green uglies hadn't pumped her full of chemicals to make her one of them. At least she wasn't laying in a ditch somewhere with mirelurks picking her bones clean. Not yet, anyway.

So, yeah. There were worse ways to live.

"Yo, Cydar," a rough and unpleasant voice called, sounding like two pieces of sandpaper grating together. It was Marley's distinctive smoker's rattle, gained from years of inhaling whatever nicotine and tobacco he could get his hands on.

Cydar yawned, her eyes downcast as she surveyed the dilapidated highway from the roof she stood on, her blue eyes bleary from lack of sleep as they roamed over piles of rubble and concrete and cars that were nearly rusted away entirely. Just thirty yards out was a massive overpass that was crumbling away more and more with everyday that passed, and just beyond that were the ghoul infested apartments in Lexington. It was dawn, and the yellow orange of the sun shone through the thick atmosphere, painting the sky a scarlet shade.

"What do you want?" She said without turning around. Instead, she sat down on the very edge of the building's roof, her legs dangling over and swinging back and forth. At her hip, fully loaded with the safety off, was a 10mm pistol, while a scoped assault rifle was strapped to her back.

Marley hacked out a laugh that sounded more like a cough, and from the corner of her eye, Cydar saw him spit phlegm over the roof's edge onto the ground below.

"What, no 'hello'," he rasped, rubbing his scarred chin solemnly. "You've got a personality like a razor blade, Cy."

Cydar's eyes narrowed. It was the early hours of the morning and three days ago, the supply of instant coffee had run out. Without having the jolt of caffeine to help her stay awake, Cydar was beyond the point of grumpy. If Marley had hiked up nearly four levels of rickety staircases just to bother her for the sole reason of a 'hello', she wasn't making any promises not to grab him by them collar and heave him over the edge of the roof herself.

When she didn't answer, Marley continued, pulling out his wind-up radio and switched it on. "Listen to this. Alex and I were scouting the frequencies last night and we found this repeating message. Apparently some bucket heads got holed up in the police department just south of here and were swarmed by ghouls." His grin turned wicked. "Just think about it. We take them out, and we get all that sweet, _sweet_ brotherhood tech."

Ghouls. The very thought of them made her toes curl in a horrible cocktail of revulsion and fear. Out of all the creatures in the Commonwealth that she had encountered so far, it was the _ghouls_ that were the worst. Uncomfortable, Cydar rubbed her hands together.

"So? Take Roth," she replied, attempting to appear nonchalant. "I'm sure he would love to tinker with all that stuff."

Marley shook his head. "Roth went out on a raid with Mercy over in Tenpines and won't be back for another day or so. Buckskin said that whoever brings back the most loot gets to have that cryo-gun in the basement."

Cydar didn't really care about the cryo-gun in the basement, but she didn't tell Marley that. She sighed, contemplating what to do. It was early in the day, but exterminating ghouls would take up most of the daylight. On top of that, she would have to haul back really _freaking_ heavy armor just for the sake of Marley getting his disgusting grimy paws on a cryo-gun he wouldn't ever use. Cydar thought about her chalks, and the portrait she had sketched against the wall last night. No doubt, if she left now, some assless chap would think it funny to pour water over it and completely destroy it. On the other hand, Marley would hang around most of the day if she didn't go and torment her endlessly. She could barely stand his cheap hooker voice for five minutes, let alone the entire day.

Cydar climbed to her feet, her pistol swinging from her hip, and tossed Marley a heated glare. "If I go with you," she said pointedly. "Will you leave me alone afterwards?"

Marley placed a hand against his tattered road leathers, right above his heart. "I swear it."

"Wait here."

Gravel crunched under Cydar's rubber sole boots as she peered around the corner of a quickly deteriorating building, her pistol held tight enough in her grip that the trembling in her fingers was barely visible. She hadn't been exaggerating. Ghouls, even the mere thought of them were enough to instill a primal sort of terror in her. From where she stood, the shallow grunting and raspy breathing were enough for her to want to shove Marley right into the horde and run while they were distracted.

But she wasn't that mean. Besides, Marley was stupid enough to do that himself.

Donning a manic smile, he walked right out there with a hammer in one hand and a pistol in the other, and it was only the sickening spatter of off-colored blood against the crumbling brick that told Cydar it had been the ghoul to go down, and not her partner. His actions didn't really surprise her though. Marley was sort of a notorious nihilist, even among raiders, and out of the whole gang back at the power plant, he was the most likely to revel in chaos just for the sake of it.

"Damn it, Marley," she cursed, pulling back the hammer of her own pistol and stepping out from her hiding spot. Taking aim, she managed to drop three of the monsters before what was left of the horde noticed her. "Are you incapable of following simple instructions?!"

His response was a hoarse laugh, and his hammer buried itself in the skull of the last ghoul. It thrashed a bit, a growl pushing past its wrinkled and torn lips before it died off, and its outstretched arms went limp at its sides. Cydar grimaced as Marley tugged his melee weapon from the splintered bone and wiped it clean of gray brain matter on his pant leg, leaving a wet smear on the fabric.

"Don't look so grim, Cy," Marley hacked, reaching into his back pocket to pull out a carton of cigarettes. "It's all in good fun."

Convinced that her partner's mind had gone down the drain, a place where she suspected it had always been, Cydar shoved him on the shoulder hard enough to send him stumbling into a pile of rubble and ghoul corpses. Marley yelped in alarm and fumbled with his cigarettes, ultimately spilling them all over the ground. He let out a cry of anguish, which was quickly followed by a look of pure rage towards Cydar.

She clapped him on the back. "All in good fun, right?"

"That's not fair," Marley said, pouting. "You used my words against me. Cheater."

Cydar shrugged, checking the magazine of her pistol as she wandered a ways down the street, cursing when she saw she only had about twelve bullets left. She knew for a fact that there were a hell of a lot more than twelve ghouls left to kill until they reached the police department. Hopefully, those bucketheads were still alive and kicking, because there was no way she was fighting her way through ghoul infested territory with a dozen bullets and a maniac for a partner.

"Hey Marley?"

"What?!" He yelled, and turning around, Cydar saw him on his hands and knees, retrieving his cigarettes and dropping them one by one back into the carton. She paused for a second, admiring how pathetic he looked, then spoke.

"How many bullets do you have left?"

Marley blinks, then frowns, reaching into his back pocket -an inconvenient place to keep bullets, sure, but Marley was a man that refused to carry around a 'purse' or 'satchel' or even a spare magazine or clip under any circumstances. Pulling out a plastic ziplock bag, Marley revealed a grand total of three bullets. Cydar cursed.

"What the fuck, Marley!?"

He shrugged and stuffed it back in his pocket. "I thought you brought extra ammo. Besides, I still have my hammer."

Cydar opened her mouth then shut it, her eyes squeezing shut in disbelief. Pinching the bridge of her nose, a heavy sigh escaped her. The urge to snap his back over her knee was growing stronger by the second, and she was afraid she might actually kill him if they got through this alive. She made a conscious decision to throw him to the ghouls if they ran out of ammo. He was soft enough to make a good chew toy for at least a few minutes.

But instead of succumbing to her persistent desire to string Marley's body up and let him rot, Cydar instead turned her attention to the distant sound of metallic popping, like heavy rain on a tin roof. It came in bursts, each flurry cracking the air and then hanging there, the echo slowly ebbing away. Cydar had been in enough gun fights to know gunfire when she heard it, and even from a distance, the volume was enough for her to know that they were using some heavy artillery. Well, at least now she knew the bucketheads were still alive. For now, anyway.

"They're packing some heat. Lasers?"

Cydar frowned. "Shut up and let's go."

The descent to the Cambridge Police Station was, aside from a few ferals, relatively uneventful. It seemed as though any ghouls in the area had been drawn to the station from the sounds of constant of gunfire. The lack of enemies gave Cydar a moment of relief, but it was short lived. With each crunch of her boot on the black and gray rubble, horrific growls mixed with gunfire, and a shudder ran up her back.

It was apparent, even from a distance, that the station was in much better condition that the surrounding buildings. The Brotherhood must have put up additional barriers to help with fending off enemies, because large metal walls had been erected where there were major openings in the station's courtyard, and as Cydar approached, she saw a few guns mounted to the roof. Unmanned, they look almost unnatural.

"Cy!"

Marley's voice called out to her, and in alarm, she spun towards him, already grabbing at her pistol. A few of the ghouls that had wandered out from the courtyard of the station were sprinting at breakneck speed towards them, claws outstretched and their jaws gaping wide to reveal rows of broken teeth, the ends sharp where the bone had rotten and splintered. There were about four in total, all of them sporting puckered pink skin stretched so thin over sinew and muscle that there were patches that had ripped away, revealing what lied beneath.

Something primal twisted in Cydar's gut violently, and she jerked backwards, her pistol flying up in front of her. A steady hand and good aim was thrown out the window and she began firing rapidly, desperate to drop them to the ground before they got too close. She saw Marley take one down with his hammer, but the other three swarmed, flanking Cydar on either side.

"Fuck!" She screamed as her pistol clicked, her finger cramping around the trigger. No more bullets, leaving her defenseless against her three attackers. Claws racked across her forearm, tearing off her leather armor along with gobs of flesh. Cydar screamed, throwing up her hands as if to ward the ghouls away. Her only defense was met with savage lunges of teeth, and she felt hot blood slick her skin.

"Marley!" She called out, her voice carrying a note of shrill terror. "Help me!"

There was a sharp and deafening sound quickly followed by two more, and the echo pounded in Cydar's ears, throwing her off balance. She fell backwards, her eyes squeezed shut against the impact. Now she was definitely dead. There's was no way she would be able to get back on her feet with three ghouls mauling her.

But, to her great surprise, there was no movement from above her, and she could no longer feel teeth digging into her arms. Breathing heavily from both pain and the rush of adrenaline, Cydar cracked her eyes open cautiously, only to find three corpses littered around her fallen figure, each one bleeding from a headshot. The shock was enough to render her speechless, if only for a little bit, but her joy at being alive soon overtook her surprise.

"Marley! You used your last bullets to save me?!" She called out, swinging her head left and right, attempting to locate her partner. Instead, her sights fell on a wall of metal with a face.

Cydar had seen BOS soldiers before, but they had always either been very far away or dead, and judging by the grim way this man stared at her as he gripped his laser rifle, he was neither. Her joy quickly diminished and her smile fell. Falling silent, she looked around again, only to find that there was no sign of Marley. It was almost as if he had just vanished out of thin air. Understanding hit Cydar like a brick to the face, and she felt sick. Marley had probably bailed the moment her saw all those ghouls swarm her, leaving her for dead.

The soldier shifted his weight, and the ground literally moved under the weight of his power armor. "Civilian, what are you doing out here? You could have been killed!"

 _Civilian_? Who did this guy think she was? Looking up at him, Cydar felt herself frown. His voice was stern and masculine, and his face pleasant, but any features Cydar might have found attractive was completely forgotten due to the fact that the barrel of his rifle was pointed directly at her face. She had to think of something, and fast.

"I got your emergency broadcast," she replied hastily, clambering to her feet rather ungracefully. The adrenaline from the previous fight was beginning to slowly ebb away, leaving only a throbbing pain from her wounds in it's place. "You sounded like you were in trouble, so I thought I might help."

"That was dangerous of you. All you really did was serve at bait, and look where it got you. Do you have a death wish?"

Cydar was beginning to really hate being spoken to like she was a misbehaving toddler, and her brow lowered at the man's words. Her pain was becoming more and more obvious to her, and she hugged her injured arms close to her chest, smearing her leather chest piece with red. What she wouldn't give for a stimpaks right now.

Apparently, the severity of her wounds dawned on the tin-can, because his rifle lowered and his gaze narrowed in concern. His eyes darted over his shoulder, and Cydar followed to where three figures sat on the steps of the station, one hunched over in pain while the other wrapped his ankle. The other stood idle, fiddling with some sort of bulky watch on his wrist, occasionally glancing behind him at a German Shephard. The vibrancy of his blue jumpsuit made Cydar flinch.

The soldier started bounding in that direction, not even looking behind him to see if Cydar would follow. "This way. You require medical attention, so see Scribe Haylen."

Cydar watched him for a few seconds, rooted to the spot as she debated on whether or not to trust these people, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to form coherent thoughts and the pain was quickly becoming unbearable. Giving in, Cydar took a shaky step in the direction of the medic, but something immediately felt wrong. Black and white dots swarmed her vision, rendering her sightless within a matter of seconds, and she felt her knees buckle. Cydar had gone on enough chem trips to know when she was going to black out, and she cursed.

" _Oh fu-_ " were her last words before she cracked her head against the pavement


End file.
